Amount of rehabilitation

Understanding the evidence about whether more therapy is better for people after stroke is fraught with issues. The single most important barrier to understanding the dose-response relationship between amount of therapy and outcome is how 'amount of therapy' is defined.

Time in therapy is a very poor proxy for time engaged in active task practice. Additionally, some rehabilitation interventions, such as treadmill training and constraint-induced movement therapy, are designed to provide a greater dose or intensive amount of therapy. It is difficult then to determine if the effect of these interventions are due to the dose or the type of intervention.

However, meta-analyses suggest that greater amounts of scheduled therapy time lead to improved outcomes, with a robust overall message that more therapy is better.

Note: additional information about the amount of rehabilitation for aphasia is available under Communication.

For current research and evidence-based recommendations see our Clinical Guidelines.